11–20 of 61 posts
Interesting to see tobeytailor (of Gordon[1]) working on this. Is this built on the same code Gordon uses? [1]: https://github.com/tobeytailor/gordon/
I don't know, but I would guess it is, if only because "Gordon Shumway" is the alias of ALF from the 80s tv show.
Pretty nice. The madness of interpreters on top of interpreters is not lost on my but still fun.
To be more precise, JITs on top of JITs. :) We have both an interpreter for ActionScript bytecode as well as a compiler that compiles that bytecode method-at-a-time to JavaScript using a restructuring approach like emscripten's relooper. Disclaimer: I work on Shumway.
That said, is the payoff of implementing this enormously involved solution really worth it? I don't know why I feel like this, but something deep down pains me when I think of the man hours and frustration that had to have gone into something like this. Does anyone else know what I mean?
Being more of a designer than a developer, I've got to admit that the thought of second wind for Flash kind of scares me. I've never liked Flash, mainly because historically it wasn't as "open" as HTML, Macromedia Flash (I know, right) crashed a lot, as well as the general abuse of Flash found all around the web in the late 90's/early 2k. Anyone willing/able to take my (probably irrational) fear away and tell me why…
I used to do Flash/Flex/Air extensively, and often preached it to my fellow developers, despite considerable resistance. I argued that SWF was fulfilling the cross-platform promise of applets.
And when Adobe managed to mishandle Macromedia's legacy, I was left with much egg on the face. I don't want to go through that again.
That said, good for Mozilla. They really are running with a ton of impressive open source projects.
Being more of a designer than a developer, I've got to admit that the thought of second wind for Flash kind of scares me. I've never liked Flash, mainly because historically it wasn't as "open" as HTML, Macromedia Flash (I know, right) crashed a lot, as well as the general abuse of Flash found all around the web in the late 90's/early 2k. Anyone willing/able to take my (probably irrational) fear away and tell me why…
It wasn't hard to write it myself (I'd guess about 40 hours for everything), but if we were going to make HTML5 games, I'd definitely consider this library.
A worthy goal, but I hope they don't let NIH set them years behind the curve.
Being more of a designer than a developer, I've got to admit that the thought of second wind for Flash kind of scares me. I've never liked Flash, mainly because historically it wasn't as "open" as HTML, Macromedia Flash (I know, right) crashed a lot, as well as the general abuse of Flash found all around the web in the late 90's/early 2k. Anyone willing/able to take my (probably irrational) fear away and tell me why…
Even though I think this is a cool project, I agree 100% with your fears. I used to do Flash/Flex/Air extensively, and often preached it to my fellow developers, despite considerable resistance. I argued that SWF was fulfilling the cross-platform promise of applets. And when Adobe managed to mishandle Macromedia's legacy, I was left with much egg on the face. I don't want to go through that again. That said, good for…
Similarly, Flash is going down, never to come back (thanks, SJ). So Shumway need handle only the tall head, possibly as a previewer if not a full Flash replacement. The long tail is not too fat, but it will require a plugin for the foreseeable future.
In the far future, archeologists will pore over archive contents at the edge of the Beyond, decoding ancient languages including JS and SWF, leery of evil transcendant malware ;-).
/be
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know, but I would guess it is, if only because "Gordon Shumway" is the alias of ALF from the 80s tv show.
I actually don't think we're sharing any code with Gordon. But yes, the name is this obscure transitive-closure reference: (Adobe) Flash -> (Flash) Gordon -> (Gordon) Shumway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even though I think this is a cool project, I agree 100% with your fears. I used to do Flash/Flex/Air extensively, and often preached it to my fellow developers, despite considerable resistance. I argued that SWF was fulfilling the cross-platform promise of applets. And when Adobe managed to mishandle Macromedia's legacy, I was left with much egg on the face. I don't want to go through that again. That said, good for…
No second wind here. Think instead of pdf.js and how it relieves you of the bloated security hole called Reader. PDF is a large format (extensions include SWF!) but pdf.js need not handle all of it to be useful in minimizing Reader activations. Similarly, Flash is going down, never to come back (thanks, SJ). So Shumway need handle only the tall head, possibly as a previewer if not a full Flash replacement. The long t…